


Merry Christmas, Danny Percell

by missmollyetc



Series: Murphy's Crew [8]
Category: Tour of Duty (1987)
Genre: Other, Post-Season Three
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-12
Updated: 2010-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-07 04:47:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmollyetc/pseuds/missmollyetc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Murphy's Laws of Combat #4</b></p><p><i>"If it's stupid, but works, it's not stupid."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Merry Christmas, Danny Percell

Danny stands in front of the mirror and rubs a hand along his unshaven jawline. He's been busy at the new construction site, building another office high rise, and so he's been letting things slide. It's easy to do, and that's why Danny's angry with himself now. Danny doesn't want to take the easy road anymore. H was the easy road, leaving was the easy road, hurting Doc . . . Danny shakes his head and picks up the can of shaving cream arranged carefully next to his straight razor. He pours a huge pile of foam into his hand and sets the can down.

The first thing you learn to do in the bush--in the jungle with its thick, close heat and dark mud--is blend. You scuff the polish off your shoes. You rub grease on your face and make sure your tags are taped nice and thick. The only thing you keep clean is your gun and that's 'cause it's the only thing that doesn't shine. Guns don't shine. They don't gleam or sparkle. A gun takes the light, eats it up and spits out darkness . . . that's what a gun does.

In America, Danny is slowly relearning, everything has to gleam. Dirt isn't tolerated, or at least never for long. Even in Montana, where ranchers and farmers practically live in the dirt, you always have to get clean eventually. Put on your Sunday Best and make a spectacle of yourself. The only way to blend is to stand out, to be careful with your appearance--with your clothes and hair--to shine.

Danny slowly rubs the shaving cream between his hands. The white foam pushes between his fingers and curls over his knuckles, obscuring the small scars and abrasions. Danny thinks some of the scars are older than 'Nam, and so they'll be acceptable. No one expects a construction worker, the son of a rodeo star, to have smooth hands. Not like a doctor's hands anyway. Though Doc's hadn't been smooth at all, just as banged up as the rest of the team . . . but that was 'Nam, not the World.

He's been real good lately, taking a moment to think, to get to know the land. He imagines Sarge would do the same. When he was first back, just off the freedom bird, he couldn't take how bright everything was, how shiny and new.

Danny isn't new. Danny is old and tarnished, rough and worn down. Danny didn't fit. He constantly forgot to shave, forgot to shower, forgot to change his clothes. He spent hours mending his own shirts before his mother pointed out he could just buy new ones at the store. And then she asked if a Vietnamese girl had taught him to sew. Danny hadn't had an answer for that one.

Danny doesn't have a lot of answers anymore. Danny doesn't have a lot to say either. It's because he's proud. Proud of his scars, proud of his worn hands, that the scar on his left thumb is from shrapnel and not a hammer blow. Danny is proud of the times he didn't take the easy way. The times at Ladybird, at Tan Son Nhut, in the bush, and in rehab. He's proud that he killed to save his friends, that he killed to save himself. He's Specialist Danny Percell, United States Army, and he wants everyone to know it.

Those times, the hard ones, don't shine in Montana the way they did in 'Nam. Here they became tawdry, dirty--dark. His mother doesn't want to hear about the days he spent in rehab, puking his guts out with Doc the only thing holding him upright. His boss doesn't want to know he once saved a man's life by firing first. His sister doesn't want to listen to stories about all the times he felt lost and afraid, with no Sarge, no LT to show him how a thing was done, and no Doc who would know the answer and, if he didn't, would talk about it anyway. Here the worst thing in the world is a baby-killer and that's just what he is. Only no one knows about that either. So Danny can't say anything, except in whispers to Ruiz over the phone late at night.

Danny looks at himself in the mirror, straight into his own eyes, and very carefully smooths the lather onto his cheeks, coating the stretch of skin under his nose, and then down his jaw. He picks up the straight razor and makes the first slice, slashing hair and foam away, and leaving raw, pink skin in his wake.

He has half an hour to get out to his mother's place for Christmas dinner. He has to be ready to shine.

**Author's Note:**

> The characters of Tour of Duty do not belong to me. No profit is being made from this story.


End file.
